Evan Lysacek told reporters that his gold medal is as much Frank Carroll’s as it is his. All personal taste aside, Evan is right. Frank is a master politician. His former skaters will all attest to this after Frank learned a hard lesson in international politics at the 1980 Olympics. Frank was outplayed by an East German machine that didn’t even need to prop up their own skater in order to defeat Linda Fratianne.

“Figure skating is so political, how can you watch it?” is something I often field from coworkers who say they prefer sports with a definitive winner. A time clock is boring. To understand how Evan Lysacek was able to beat Evgeny Plushenko, one must understand that it did have a lot to do with their performances, but it also was a match between Frank and the North American machine against Mishin, Piseev and Didier.